Volume 1

Sajous's analytical cyclopædia of practical medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous and one hundred associate editors.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sajous's analytical cyclopædia of practical medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous and one hundred associate editors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    701/748 (page 663)
    Vitality must be restored as quickly as possible, and the use of ammonia (preferably carbonate), strychnine, and caffeine (because of their stimulating effect upon the cardiac muscle); hot drinks, such as milk and tea; alcoholic drugs in the form of whisky or brandy, and the production of local or gener¬ alized sweating. A most desirable plan of restoring heat is by using hot-water bottles placed at regular points so as to diffuse its effects. Other means, as, for instance, covering the body with a sheet and conveying heat through a pipe or by placing heated bricks beneath this covering. To keep the sufferer fairly comfortable during the local treatment stimulation must be kept up, care being taken not to produce overactivity and thus allow reaction to prove as deleteri¬ ous as the effect of the burn. The functions of the body must be regulated, the bowels being kept free or confined, according to the conditions present; the action of the kidneys should be watched. In some cases it may be wise to anaesthetize the patient during the first few hours immediately follow¬ ing the burn, and especially during the first dressings of aggravated cases. Local.—The local treatment is to be directed toward the limitation of the re¬ sulting inflammation, the prevention of septic infection, assisting the normal elimination of the eschar, the develop¬ ment of granulations, and limitation of the deformity. In burns of the first degree little or no treatment may be demanded. In the more aggravated cases of this type the application of home measures, such as bicarbonate of sodium, the white of egg and sweet oil (equal parts), lead- water and laudanum, and the various hot or cold means generally at the dis¬ posal of housewives. Burns of the second and third degrees must be more strenuously treated. It is often a difficult problem to know which is the more soothing application to be advised and from which we may get the better result. In one case hot applications, in another cold; in some wet, and in others dry, measures are to be given. The vesicles, if numerous, should be untouched; but if only a few, they are best evacuated. Prof. S. D. Gross was wont, in many mild and severe cases, to use ordinary white-lead paint; the results achieved were often marvelous. [This is a remarkably efficacious meas¬ ure. Mere painting of the burn, as if it were an article of furniture, etc., causes immediate cessation of the pain. Ed.] The use of carbolized vaselin (15 to 30 grains to the ounce), watery solutions of carbolic acid (about 20 grains to the ounce), subnitrate of bismuth (1/2 to 1 drachm to ounce of ointment of zinc oxide or petrolatum), boric acid (either in watery saturated solutions or oint¬ ments of either zinc oxide or petrolatum in strengths varying from 1/2 to 2 drachms to the ounce), bicarbonate of soda in almost full strength (in ointment or watery solutions), and starch in vary¬ ing proportions will usually be found . very efficacious. Turpentine, where granulations are sluggish, will give excellent results used either in full or diluted strengths, giv¬ ing care not to produce too much stimu¬ lation. H. L. Mclnnis states that spirit of turpentine applied to a burn of either the first, second, or third degree almost at once relieves the pain, while the burn heals. After wrapping a thin layer of absorbent cotton over the burn, the cot¬ ton is saturated with common turpen¬ tine and covered with bandages. Being volatile, the turpentine evaporates, and